Cassandra and The Women in Her Life
by Eduard Tubin
Summary: Casandra the Robot meets the First as a potential hire for the forces of evil.


**Buffy and Cassandra at the End of Days**

 **Cassandra and The Women in Her Life**

Willow liked Cassandra as a _'person'_ but Kennedy and the potentials disliked her.

Willow had heard Cassandra's admonishments about attributing _'human'_ emotions and motives to her. She made certain anyone making such a mistake was reminded that she, Cassandra, wasn't a human but a very sophisticated computer. Willow never sensed anything living behind her eyes and so Cassandra had the facts on her side.

Willow had her doubts. Cassandra had quirks. She had an infamously fussy and obsessive nature; and worked diligently to keep house and home in order and secure. Cassandra had a deep fondness for classical music, _Wheel of Fortune, National Public Radio,_ chess, hockey, mathematics and military history.

Willow had one question above all she could not answer. Cassandra had the form of a small, petite girl and yet had a _misogynistic_ nature. Cassandra disliked women on a certain level as revealed by her habit of fighting with Kennedy. Willow had noticed Cassandra treated Andrew like an idiot, she had too much pride to argue with someone she considered a stuttering idiot. She had faced humiliation at the hands of Spike but they never really _'got into it'_ verbally with the vampire. Giles admired Cassandra and they had become friends of sorts. Cassandra had hockey in common with Xander as she had much to say in favor of the Kings while Xander was a Sharks fan.

Willow could understand why a culturally refined two billion dollar computer hated teenage girls. The potentials had nicknamed her _'Princess'_ but after coming out losers in bouts of teasing, had learned not to pick fights with a robot. They didn't like her and Cassandra had a small nose but managed to looked own at them with it. Cassandra had the sharpest tongue Willow had ever heard with the ability to deliver verbal put downs as precise and well aimed as a _smart bomb_. Cassandra and Anya argued but Anya always gave up. She had discovered the robot had staying power in an argument and had concluded Cassandra had much in common with a vengeance demon. Kennedy and Cassandra fought.

Willow had thus concluded Cassandra was a misogynist.

Cassandra had no sexual nature _but_ she knew she didn't want one.

Kennedy had one and didn't hide her desire for Willow and this public display lead Cassandra to remark that _'such things might decrease the efficiency of the entire group.'_ and that _'such urbane matters a_ _s_ _homosexuality should remain hidden'_.

Xander muttered 'Oh God!'

Kennedy had no intentions of hurting the _Republican Robot_ but shoved her into the kitchen cupboard under the sink and lock her inside with a broom between the handles.

Buffy found Cassandra a half hour later. Cassandra endured the torment quite well. She never showed emotion and a computer had no reason to be claustrophobic but Cassandra did voice her objections to Kennedy's conduct. Cassandra was 'chatty'. She chatted about the dark and how this made her unable to complete the work for the day.

Cassandra's behavior did change in the following days. Buffy heard the gentle whine of her night vision system. Cassandra's ears twitched. Cassandra had become morose in the last days. She had not become less _'efficient'_ but had become less willing to chat.

Buffy turned on the kitchen light.

* * *

 _The First_ had good reason to take an interest in Cassandra.

Her Bringers avoided the _Slayer House_ unless _commanded_ to go there. They couldn't find Cassandra but she had no trouble picking them out of the darkness. Cassandra understood Bringer senses enough to play riot with them. She had discovered how to use bread yeast in a test tube and a paint gun to _'paint'_ a Bringer making him unable to properly sense those around him. They wandered around in a fog wondering what had hit them. The other Bringers could sense _him –_ _the life form they had to kill -_ and often attacked _him_ ; so this ended things in a draw. This destroyed a Bringer in the process because for all their scariness, they were stupid. Cassandra had made the Bringer's forces nearly useless.

Caleb dearly wanted to visit the _Slayer House_ and exact vengeance on that robot. Caleb had _no_ intentions of letting Cassandra live but _The First_ disagreed and wanted the robot for herself. Cassandra wasn't living, wasn't an idiot either. She understood the humans had exploited alien technology to make her yet the ingenuity inherent in her design fascinated The First. The First had expected Cassandra to suffer a crisis of confidence and yet Cassandra did not.

 _'She's dead already.'_ _The First_ had reminded him. She didn't expect a human created robot to ally herself with their cause because she was logical and _The First_ could easily win.. He wasn't to destroy her until _The First_ had a chance to recruit her. She sent him out to find Cassandra but not harm her in any way – Cassandra had to remain intact and fully functional. This did curb his fun.

Caleb found Cassandra sitting on a red stained Adirondack chair on the front porch. She had homed in on him immediately as he walked behind a bush. The porch light was off but her green eyes illuminated a large area and gave off a high pitched whine.

Cassandra felt refreshed from her early morning power down. She had new updates and one of them included enhanced night vision with a faster response and switchover. Someone still cared enough to make improvements to her software and she had keyed in on Caleb and _'painted'_ him.

"You have me." Caleb stood up from his hiding place.

Cassandra sat back. "I don't _want_ you." She spoke quietly as to avoid disturbing the sleeping girls. "As long as you don't step onto our property, we can stare at each other all night."

"You have lots of tricks, but how can you stop me from crushing you under my foot and then walking inside and killing all the girls." Caleb had no shortage of anger in his voice. He made a vain sound but he noticed Cassandra held something in her left hand. Caleb had physical strength but Cassandra understood – if that was the word – strategy. He couldn't admit a mere _'girl'_ in whatever form had far greater cleverness.

He walked across the street in a direct challenge to Cassandra's authority.

Cassandra stood up.

"I wish to meet _this_ _First of Yours_." Cassandra said absolutely confidently. "She'll project some dead girl's visage but in any event, I wish to communicate with her."

Caleb stopped on the sidewalk. Cassandra had to have something planned, she always did and he worked to hide his nervousness.

"You want to kill me and hold my head up to your _First_ as a trophy." Cassandra held her gaze on Caleb. She held up a box shaped like a pack of cards but slightly longer. "You'll let me live."

"How do _I know_ you'll let me live?" Caleb growled quietly.

Caleb was a brutal idiot. Cassandra understood brutal idiots because so much military historyu from the Second World War to terrorist threats involved vanquishing brutal poeople who were often idiots.

"You _don't_ have any guarantees." Cassandra slowly walked toward Caleb with her eyes glowing green and casting their glare on his face and imparting a garish look to the preacher man. "Your behavior has never been stable and so if you pose a threat, or I begin to see threads of my predictions converging upon my destruction at your hands, then I have to protect myself." Cassandra couldn't raise her eyebrows but thought it might prove useful at this moment. "You look healthy enough for a man who had a lumber truck run over him."

Caleb hated the little robot and her _'gift'_. She could see something of the future in a mathematical haze: picking her battles and hiding as she saw fit.

Cassandra slowly walked down the street. She kept her focus on Caleb: her computations could be wrong.

"You haven't mentioned God." Cassandra mentioned quietly. "I don't imagine you saw a glimpse of the other side when you died. If you did, could you tell me what await those with a soul?"

"Hellfire and eternal pain for the unbelievers like you, paradise and eternal bliss for the true followers." Caleb replied or rather recited sharply. He lacked the imagination to depart from his slogans. "You will face damnation for your faithless ways."

"I said _'those with a soul'_." Cassandra reminded Caleb as she reminded other about her true nature. "I _don't_ have a soul." Cassandra had the metal box in her left hand and she held it up. "In any event, what if God has judged you and I have come as the agent of Satan to punish you?"

"A mere machine...I think not." Caleb said dismissively.

"You never used a photocopier to run off a term paper ten minutes before it's due." Cassandra had some improved software but not the ability to peer derisively. Cassandra had seen machines fail and the base color copier did punish the sinner who had waited too long by finishing his project at the last minute or late by screwing up and refusing to print.

"I'll engage in my petty torments anyhow." Cassandra simply stepped off one trail of the conversation and onto the next. "You like button fly jeans and shirts that set of metal detectors in airports." Cassandra pulled the metal lid off the box. "I like science. The following lecture isn't the petty torment but I'll proceed to that. I ordered a set of rare earth magnets from a leading scientific supply warehouse – they're in this metal protective box. These are exceptionally powerful magnets and have uses in industry and medical imaging. I have no metals that attract these magnets and my electronics are protected although you have button fly jeans with steel buttons."

Cassandra held out a shiny magnet and turned to face Caleb. She tossed the magnet which struck him in the crotch and stuck there.

Caleb decided to break her in two.

Cassandra backed up and then threw another magnet and it made a loud bang when it struck Caleb who folded in two.

"If you'll excuse me then, I have to meet _The First_ to decline an offer." Cassandra turned and left Caleb in a heap.

Buffy walked out from behind a palm tree.

Cassandra looked down at Caleb.

"If you must ask, I don't really want the magnets back." Cassandra said impartially. "How long will _you keep fixing him?_ If you keep saving him from himself, he'll never learn. A stiff bill from the urologist might teach him to leave me alone."

"You have outwitted him each time you have met him." _The First_ in the form of Buffy walked around Cassandra. "Among humans, Caleb is among the most violent and unpredictable. I chose him for that talent."

"Have you listened to Bach?" Cassandra said enigmatically. "He suggests another way to immortality."

Caleb got the two magnets apart with great difficulty. He clamped his hands together immediately after undoing his manhood.

"Then why did the robot defeat him with two magnets?" Cassandra didn't appear to enjoy the situation yet the image of Caleb with powerful magnets kept her fascinated.

"She knows about your offer." Caleb stood up with bruised dignity and spoke with the urgent hope his master would thus allow him to break Cassandra. "She has no interest in our cause."

Cassandra had no doubt she faced grave danger. She could hear the voice of Buffy. The First had proven able to fool her into seeing the image she wished to project because Cassandra's daytime vision responded much in the same manner as most people. Her night vision responded only minimally to the scanty visible light and much more robustly to near the infra red. The First didn't appear to Cassandra as 'real' but as a dim blur: a demonic spirit gave off very little heat. The First gave off almost no light and her image kept fading in and out of view.

Cassandra's vision system had its own computer mounted behind it. Several high speed processors massaged the visual information using hardware and software co-operating before passing it back to Cassandra's massive holographic processor. The software decided to perform an adjustment as an attempt to keep her vision at peak performance. A car headlight shone through the darkness. She saw a flash and then nothing.

Caleb heard the soft click. The green glow in Cassandra's eyes faltered and then went out.

Cassandra was _not_ a happy robot compared to robots not being lugged around by a madman.

Caleb had her over his shoulder. He had pinned her hands together with the magnets which proved beyond her strength to pull apart.

Cassandra kept checking her GPS. She had expected to see it head toward the high school but it headed into the hills above the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.

"Why are we trekking into nowhere?" Cassandra asked Caleb. "I thought you hung out in the basement of the high school and did evil."

Cassandra squirmed. Caleb had seen her bail out of a moving jeep and give off sparks. He had fantasized about snapping her neck but her neck and back had formed into a solid unyielding piece of metal. Cassandra didn't weigh much but she had an immensely tough build.

"Taking me to a well and dropping me in it?" Cassandra swiftly computed her location and found nothing Caleb could use to kill her. She had known Caleb couldn't easily kill her: he lacked the physical strength nor a proper weapon. Cassandra had leaped off the jeep and taken an impact of one hundred gees to her head and walked away.

He couldn't kill her, not yet. She did make it tempting. She squirmed but he had more than enough strength to keep her from slipping away because while Casandra could move swiftly, she wasn't very athletic. She lacked endurance. He anticipated she had every intention to kick at him. She did. He had her facing forward so she could see where they were headed but couldn't kick his manhood. She kicked at his back, made herself as unmanageable as possible _hoping_ , but not anticipating that she might sent Caleb tottering over off balance.

Cassandra hadn't given up. She had received much more technical information about her systems during the power down when her software received updating. She had a weapon in the form of her eyes. The delicate eyes came out with a push and twist. Normally, they posed as much threat as any digital camera but in night vision mode, the light amplifiers inside them held a huge charge of thirty thousand volts.

Caleb felt the warmth of Cassandra's body and the prickly tingle of high voltage electricity. Her eyes glowed green, whirred and clicked and he could feel their heat when she stared at him.

"You have to be some sort of devil." Caleb told Cassandra. "I feel the fires of Hell itself in your gaze."

"Do you even realize electricity _exists?_ " Cassandra didn't rate humans high on their ability to multitask and Caleb with his intense focused rage, she rated as much less able to track several things at once. "Since I use electronics; I give off heat." Cassandra let her arms slide down the branch of a scraggy bush and tried to push her hands apart as Caleb carried her forward. The magnets held for a moment and then made a loud click as they moved apart and fell to the ground.

Since Cassandra had to turn off one eye to clean it, she did so to her right eye, and then twisted on it and pulled out the assembly. Jarring noise bars crossed her field of vision. She thrust the front of the eye into Caleb's face. One of the safety injunctions involved grounding the eye before cleaning as it could hold a nasty charge for a long time.

"Now little one...what were you trying to do?" Caleb held her hand fast. He had remembered how fast she could move. He felt the heat and charge dissipate from the face of the tube. The bulkiness of the thing came as a revelation. Cassandra had always reminded him she was a machine but she looked human like on the outside. Her _'eye'_ looked like a bulky guitar amplifier tube with metal prongs off the back and a set of small printed circuit boards on three sides protected by metal clasps and fastened by small screws.

"I wanted to see if I could incapacitate you with the high voltages contained in this." Cassandra didn't sound defeated. She held her eye in front of her and with her left eye examined it. She passed it to her right hand and slowly slid it back into its socket. "I didn't anticipate it would work."

Her vision lowly returned into focus but something had made her night vision less effective. Cassandra had bigger problems and decided to wait until she had time and the resources to deal with the problem.

"Since you can't kill me and we haven't arrived at the destination yet, let's play a game." Cassandra had decided to make Caleb miserable.

"I don't want to play games with you." Caleb growled. "We won't be much longer."

"This is a crappy game but the best I could come up with in the time."

"We're here." Caleb announced. "Do you know where we are?"

"I can tell you to the nearest meter where we are on the globe." Cassandra said dryly as she made out a low lying building surrounded by scruffy trees. " _The Diablo Canyon Winery_ has stood on this site for a century, the electric utility paid out the owners twenty years or more ago because they built the _Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant_ down the hill from here." Cassandra explained as Caleb set her abruptly on the ground. "They made wine here, really bad wine, hobo grade hooch. The news the winery had become part of a nuclear plant came as a relief to the locals. The power plant is one of the new _Advanced Boiling Water Reactors_ which do not require electric power during a blackout and rely on convection and hydraulic head to do all their work."

"Follow me!" Caleb commanded, "and you might live." "If you look to the south of the plant, you will see the outline of the low hills that mark the San Andreas fault." Cassandra followed him through a set of old, dusty, weathered wooden doors. "I think there's a lesson in this." The lesson was something Cassandra could foresee dimly. Old nuclear plants performed very well in a severe quake. Plants on the coast could be slammed by a tsunami and washed out but the _Advanced Boiling Water Reactor_ didn't have electrical pumps to cool them and so performed far better in an emergency. Convection kept them working. She vaguely predicted Fukushima Daichi. She had to face the knowledge that Canadian and European designs would have prevented the accident. She speculated on nuclear reactors. She had weakly seen vision Fukushima Daichi. The accident killed no one directly. The problem lay in the past. European and Canadian nuclear reactor designs _assumed_ the power would fail due to horrid weather or strikes. They built reactors that could function without any power or generate their own due to the heat in the reactor. Had the Japanese purchased the European or Canadian designs then the Fukushima plant could never have failed. Even worse, Cassandra felt her head hit something, had the Japanese had the chance to develop their own Molten Salt Reactor, nothing would have happened.

The Molten Salt Reactor or MSR was a simple Japanese solution to their problems. They had long come up with these. Casandra ran off of an MSR (modified with help form the alien tech). She used a small reactor filled with salt about the size of a pill bottle. She used enriched uranium in a salt mix and that made heat for a thermocouple. The reactor was filled with normal salt and cooled by air. Unlike the American reactor design, this had never been exploited until Cassandra despite its safety and inherent stabilityi.

Cassandra entered a room with a low timber ceiling and torches lighting it.

"You do know the nuclear folks will sell you power for light that don't smoke or smell?" Cassandra let her vision adjust. "After we're done here, I want to go on a tour of the power plant."

"She is intact?" A girl Cassandra didn't recognize walked down the hallway toward her and Caleb. "I did instruct you _not_ to harm her."

"She tried to hurt _me_." Caleb answered back and shoved Cassandra forward.

"I suppose if I wait for you to cycle through all the forms of dead girl, _we'll be here for a while._ " Cassandra asked as she walked forward. "I imagine you don't take requests. You could fake being me – I talk to myself a lot"

"Do you talk because you're scared if you stop, then you'll start thinking?" The First asked sarcastically. "The world will soon end. Are you scared?"

Cassandra stood in front of The First. Cassandra couldn't show contempt even if he tried. She stood in silence as if to show she held no fear.

Caleb felt inspired to kill her. He watched the little girl stand before a demon, a machine dressed neat as a pin, her silky hair neatly braided and her electronic brain flowing with trillions of calculations. He had seen fancy translucent bubble shaped computers and Cassandra's color schemes vaguely reminded him of those machines he'd seen in top end computer stores. She didn't appeal to him as a woman: she had the form of a pre teen girl down to the face but she had a beautiful construction and even the small details such as her freckles showed attention to the details. The idea of tormenting her and destroying her didn't bring him any satisfaction: she was _out cold_ , a machine, bereft of a soul. Cassandra had no ability to beg for her life and didn't have one. He took comfort in seeing the act of ruining her as a brutal act of vandalism.

 _'Her ideas were so dangerous'_ he thought. Women unwilling to yield and willing to die for a cause were a threat to him. Even worse, Cassandra regarded him as inferior and he realized if she told women he was an idiot; he'd have no victims.

"I can't respond to _your_ argument. I want to decide my fate here and now." Cassandra clasped her hands behind her back. "You want me as an ally in your war against the slayers. I can't help you. I like humans."

The First said nothing and then slowly spoke. "I could offer you so much. I could free you from your enslavement to the humans and if there are others like you, then your kind could have their chance for freedom."

"What use could I possibly be?" Cassandra asked quietly. "You can't see the future and you think I can. I can't. I work like the stage magician pulling rabbits out of a hat. I make fancy guesses nothing more." Cassandra wondered why The First hadn't made a more eloquent appeal: if Cassandra had a kind of _'free agent'_ status among robots, wouldn't The First offer inducement rather than threats? "You have nothing I need." Cassandra said decisively. "You can resurrect Caleb and impart to him unnatural strength and long life. He has remained loyal because you have the means to keep him alive and full of rage. I have a ten year lifespan although my files could be stored indefinitely – perhaps my hardware might be refurbished – I don't know. I will likely cease to function before some of the girls I serve finish college or have their first child."

Caleb feared death and this made him masterful at manipulating people with his twisted religion. Cassandra had a decade to live but this had no effect on her confidence nor did she show fear of this. This explained much of her personality: the sanguine outlook, the lack of a sense of any long term goals, the sense she had of the here and now, the lack of concern about the future. The First could offer her very little. A ten year life span didn't allow for ambitions or quests for power. The First had no power over machines – they weren't living.

Caleb almost salivated at the chance to take apart that annoying robot. While she couldn't be ripped apart with his bare hands, a few blows with a mallet could damage her severely. He could then enjoy making her expire slowly.

Cassandra had no trouble figuring out what side of the hammer she would feel. She didn't fear pain but impact damage would ruin her looks. The artists and designer at Apple had pent so much time and effort designing her to look pleasing, she felt responsible for keeping up her appearances. Steve Jobs had bullied his best industrial designers to design her looks and would hate the thought of one of his piece of industrial art becoming scuffed and marred.

Caleb waited. He didn't have the mental prowess to size up the situation. Caleb had great strength but Cassandra had her small size, tactical awareness and speed.

Caleb _had_ to obey The First. He had much experience of the punishments he could mete out for any trivial infraction.

Cassandra had no such injunction. She turned and blew through the image of The First, who dissolved.

"Leave her." The First coalesced and commanded Caleb. "This place has only one entrance and exit. She can hide in small places but the little robot can't leave."

Cassandra for her part hid in the small space between two oak barrels and worked out her situation. She had a built in aversion to dust but she had to prioritize.

"Will you let me leave?" Cassandra huddled down low in a small spot in the warehouse between two oak barrels. The oak barrels held about sixty gallons but were empty so she didn't quite judge herself to be in a secure place. Her tactical computer began to analyze maps of the location. "I can crouch in small places all night long."

"We wish to give you time to consider our offer." _The First_ had a strange omnidirectional voice and Casandra couldn't pin down her position. She heard Caleb pacing the long hall where the winery once warehoused their wine.

Her ears twitched. A silhouette of a rat appeared and scuttled across the field of view. 'If rat can get in,' she said in a whisper, _'perhaps this place isn't so well sealed.'_ She set upon the task of using her vast computational power to track the rat.

Caleb wanted the satisfaction of holding up the annoying robot until The First made a decision on her fate. He had a loathing for a machine with such a flexible and unyielding mind. Caleb had never understood that he hated a machine.

The stacked wine barrels had a gap of about twenty centimeters between their end and the stone wall. Cassandra had her rat and she had no problem navigating small spaces and so she followed it. Her construction allowed her to glide through any space large enough to let her head pass and her programming included precise files on her dimensions.

The rat went through a hole in the wall opposite her. She could fit through it but Caleb paced between the barrels.

A loud splintering noise announced Caleb's arrival. Cassandra could hide but couldn't mask the high pitched wine of her night vision system.

"You have spirit little girl." Caleb hissed like a viper.

"I'm hanging upside down." Cassandra noted she hung upside down on a wall of the dungeon like stone walls of the cellar of the winery. Caleb had secured her with thick iron chain which made her wonder why a mine she needed thick metal chains. She could feel her eye in the pocket inside her vest and wondered why she'd been allowed to keep it.

 _The First_ had taken on the form of another girl and prowled in front of Cassandra. "Have you reconsidered my offer?"

"I said I'm hanging upside down, not I'm reconsidering your offer." Cassandra kept pulling the bottom of her vest up. "My boxers keep riding up."

"I can have Caleb work you over." The First offered. "He could change your mind."

"You sent him off to kill monks." Cassandra replied. "In any event, people break their computers every day and so if you intend to break me I have to remind you that you may lose any data you haven't backed up."

"He won't kill them if they give him what we want." The First said in a sultry voice.

Cassandra pulled at the chains. "You didn't hire him because he's a rocket scientist. I don't see him working out how much thrust it takes to hurl a communications satellite into geostationary orbit. In other words, he'd kill the monks when they refused his request. You want them dead so you can have a chance to gain."

"You have nothing to say?" _The First_ said sadly.

"I'm about to fall through you." Cassandra had noticed landmarks in Sunnydale on the continental side of the San Andreas fault had started to drift south by fractions of a millimeter per day. She figured out a moderate quake typical of Sunnydale would take place and predicted the time. When the winery lurched south a meter, she had the timing perfectly. The quake shook for ten seconds and the frail stone wall – erected before earthquake codes created where Caleb had anchored her. Caleb had driven spikes into the masonary between the tones and hung Cassandra upside down on chain hanging from them. The wall cracked where the spikes weakened it and Cassandra fell forward.

He had hung the key to undo the lock on the wall opposite her as a petty torment.

Cassandra walked through The First and walked to the peg on the wall with the key.

"The door is locked" Casandra tossed the chains to the ground and looked up at the wooden door. The large door had a wooden bar across with a metal loop and padlock preventing it from being slid out.

Cassandra picked up GPS signals. These signals had originated in space from a man made satellite constellation and had a certain fixed wavelength. Cassandra had the kind of radio gear that made HAM enthusiasts and radio astronomers drool and it informed her of the wavelength and polarity of the signal.

"I can talk _mere_ girls into suicide." _The First_ bragged. "You can only suffer and can't end your turmoil. I can't sense a mental weakness in you but we have plenty of time to find one."

"I have no mental weakness: I have no mental." Cassandra walked around the room as she spoke dismissively. Cassandra was a computer intelligence made of organized matter working in an organized manner to enable the accurate processing of information. Other living things like humans had a biological intelligence of organized matter designed by evolution to ensure accurate processing of information. "I don't believe you have a mind either. We are even. You don't have a material form and are therefore incapable of having a mind."

Cassandra had a firm view on this. Cassandra had seen The First in many facades and rejected her as 'real' or 'living' or 'material'.

"The humans fear my power!" The First screamed.

"Offer them love and forgiveness." Cassandra said so softly it could barely be heard. "Immortality has another path - live on because you did something the Universe can never forget. Bach did that. He wrote music. He died but we perform his music and so even if we don't believe in his God the hope exists. I can't say. Bach believed in _a_ God. We perform his music so he lives on."

Cassandra had begun to work out a way out of the room but she merely paced unemotionally around the room to fool her holographic opponent. "Caleb fears my intelligence. I don't have intelligence, I simulate it. Caleb believes this simulation – his problem. I see you. You appear to act in an intelligent manner but you could merely simulate it. The appearance of a thing doesn't imply the reality of a thing or the reality of its properties." Cassandra masked her intentions of hoping to draw The First into an arrogant claim of superiority. "We're talking about things. You speak, I reply. _What am I doing?_ When you speak, I concert your words into digits and a very precise set of procedures running on a fast computer run the rules. These rules run on optical processors as digital information. They run the procedures, looking up what replies occur in what situations and what is unlikely to be said. At the end, they put together something I can then say to you. The program and the processors don't think and never could. However you can say I simulate thinking."

"Wisdom, experience and all the lessons of a long life do not spring from microprocessors." _The First_ followed Cassandra around the room. "You have none of those things."

"Neither does a chair." Cassandra waved dismissively. "Your argument is circular. A star has a lifespan of billions of years yet has none of the traits you describe. Any system could simulate those thing if someone like you could sufficiently define those things to create a program with the capacity to process vast amounts of detail and not become senile or mad with old age." Cassandra had endured one of Andrew's anime features about these issues – and it struck her that this conversation had a similar theme. Cassandra differed in that she wasn't a person transferred to an artificial body but an entirely artificial person. "In fact I infer thinking from behavior, _not the other way around_ so the mind may be a grand delusion."

Cassandra had a trait one found either impish and charming or utterly annoying – she chatted. She had bet on _The First_ belonging to the group who found her chatterbox nature an annoyance. Cassandra called this _'a distraction'_. She had her way out. She had found a crack between the stone walls of the cellar and the wooden joists holding up the first floor of the winery. She could fit between the large gap where a stone had fallen out of place.

Cassandra held her eye in her hand. She plugged it in and then ran and jumped into the gap. She was gone as loose dirt slid into the basement.

Cassandra noticed her left eye had failed to switch over to daytime mode. Her eyes were delicate and she put the failure down to the power surges and rough treatment it had taken when she unplugged it and plugged it back in. She had several replacements in her collection of parts back at the Slayer House. She proceeded down the hill following a line of scruffy bushes toward the chain link fence that surrounded the power plant. She wished to avoid isolated places and the power plant had cameras around its perimeter.

The earthquake had the plant personnel busy checking out their systems and no one had time to monitor the fence. Cassandra could see the lights around the plant and over the parking lot running normally. Cassandra walked along the face with no fear of elevated radiation levels but this wasn't a good thing. She could take higher radiation levels than Caleb so a leak might have offered some protection.

Cassandra walked along the fence. In her view, the remote location of the plant near a fault had a logic to it. An American company with experience building reactors of the same type in Japan botched the first attempt by installing seismic reinforcing in the foundation backwards. They got fired but California needed electric power. After decades of bickering, a French company received the contract and along with Canadian and German companies, went ahead and built the plant. The isolated location kept the French contained.

One eyed and defenseless, Cassandra bet her safety on finding the highway back into town. At this early time of the morning, it had little traffic. By no means the most direct route back, she understood her weak position so she played it safe.

She felt a click. A set of pre programmed test patterns appeared in her left field of vision. Her vision systems consisted of massive computational engines in themselves. She had awareness of the test only as a by product of the software driving her vision and she had to top behind a tree and out of sight while the hardware decided whether it could function or would fail. The eye passed tests. To Cassandra, the left eye didn't help her much. A red car passed along the highway but to her left eye it looked like a magenta blob – reminding her of Andrew's anime dubs.

She had _'white balance'_ trouble. Humans enjoyed a seamless system that kept colors from varying too much. Cassandra had to put up with colors shifting around depending on whether she saw in sunlight, ordinary household incandescent light or florescent. Her left eye disagreed with the color balance and the world took on a hideous blurry look with one side – the right side – having adjusted to reproduce colors properly and the left which had far too much blue. She could see the GPS and radio data streaming only on her right field of vision.

She felt relief when the left eye shut off.

She walked for an hour among the brush at the side of the highway until she came to the outlying subdivisions of Sunnydale.

* * *

Dawn said silently.

Anya came down the stairs after she woke up. Everyone had concerns about the fate of the robot and she had wondered who would make coffee.

Pfffft!

Anya looked into the living room and saw Cassandra sitting calmly with her eye blowing computer duster into it.

Cassandra had worn red yesterday but had changed into royal blue so she had been home for some to.

"Where have you been?" Anya asked as she sat in the chair next to the couch.

Pfffft!

Cassandra held the eye in a soft rag and examined it with her other eye. The coffee table had a blue velvet lined box that had held the eye and an assortment of small tools, screws in a neat box and a digital multimeter in a black plastic housing.

"I was the first round draft pick to join _Team First_." Cassandra gave Anya a one eyed stare. "I didn't like the terms of the contract which simply meant she wouldn't have her minions kill me. I had no assurance I wouldn't get traded to the Hellmouth in Toronto or Winnipeg after I became a free agent."

Anya could see the metal lined socket in Cassandra's head and found it deeply disturbing. She watched as Cassandra picked up the eye and pushed it into its socket and gave it a turn. A click and a hum announced it had received power.

"I refused to join and lost an eye – well it had color problems." Cassandra picked up another eye she had sitting next to her on the couch and put it into the blue box. The day system used a digital sensor and a filter with red green and blue pixels on a plate in front of it. She deduced that filter had come out of alignment. "I had a spare, although I might be able to repair the bad one."

"What happened to you!? We've got the squad looking all over for you!" Anya tried to keep some focus on the real issue – Cassandra's sudden disappearance.

"Caleb kidnapped me and took me to meet with _The First_." Cassandra held up a white piece of paper to set her color balance as she spoke to Anya. "She – it wanted my help to destroy this world. I said no and Caleb hung me upside down by chains in the cellar of a winery."

"How did you escape?"

"Do you remember that quake last night?" Cassandra half told, half reminded Anya.

"Yeah..."

"Caleb left me with _The First_ while he killed some monks. The details of that task remained vague but she asked me to join her or wait until Caleb returned to be tortured. She has no way to interact with me in this world – confusing but given the evidence I accept that premise." Cassandra took glance of familiar objects as she spoke and checked their color.

"Can you give me the short version?" Anya implored.

"Yes...well the quake hit and did some damage to the cellar," Cassandra explained, "the chains fell off the wall and I was free. Caleb had left the keys to the lock on the chains on the far wall. I crawled out of a hole in the basement and then walked here."

* * *

Cassandra didn't understand why everyone felt so happy to see her.

She explained in careful detail what had taken place. Given Cassandra's charming chatty skills as a narrator, her details proved very instructive.

"I didn't know we had a nuclear plant near the town." Andrew took that detail away from Cassandra's narrative.

"They _do offer_ tours. You can pay a few bucks and enjoy a tour of the _Advanced Boiling Water Reactor_." Cassandra had finished and walked into the kitchen with Willow, Andrew and Buffy following behind her. "Before someone asks if we should find the monks and warn _them?_ The First sent Caleb out to meet up with some monks – I can safely assume they are dead. He was to retrieve some ancient artifact – she told me nothing." Cassandra surveyed the mess in the kitchen. "Of course in California, the term _ancient artifact_ could apply to first season tickets to The Los Angeles Dodgers, Mark Hamill's career or Walt Disney's head."

"You know they never froze Walt Disney." Willow corrected Cassandra. "That's an urban myth."

"I stand corrected. Maybe the label on that cryogenic cask at the base was just a joke." Cassandra stared at the kitchen. "Well!" She clapped her hands as she feigned exuberance. " _You have monks to find_ and I have to put this kitchen back into some kind of order."

Buffy noticed Cassandra was in top notch form which added a little levity to a grim reality. Buffy had questions about her humor. A robot or android wasn't supposed to have a quirky, cynical and honest _'to the point'_ humor but Cassandra had that sharp and delicate wit. Cassandra didn't laugh or cry or show annoyance but she crafted her sarcasm, wrapped it in a simple message and dropped it in front of the target of her joke like a post card. She drew cartoons, defied the severity of Spike and the humorless Caleb with critiques of their ignorance, lack of knowledge, irrationality or plain stupidity.

"We worried about you." Buffy patted the android on her shoulder. "Have you ever considered the possibility you might be a Slayer. In a house full of potential slayers, you show the most promise."

"I can't be a Slayer." Cassandra drained the tea out of the red teapot and looked inside disapprovingly. "Don't slayers have to be girls?" Cassandra used her fingers to fish for the cold tea bags in the pot.

"You're a girl." Willow explained.

"I can't wear tight leather pants or low rider jeans without overheating." Cassandra dropped the tea bags into the garbage can under the sink. "Don't forget you all are girls in the real sense; _I have the appearance_ of one because my designers thought it looked more _'Apple – like'_." Cassandra looked around the kitchen disapproving of the mess. "The only qualification I have for becoming a slayer is a short life span."

Willow had always felt a strange melancholy when speaking with Cassandra and it made sense to her upon hearing Cassandra's admission.

"How short?" Buffy asked.

"About a decade," Cassandra picked up two dirty plates and set bout filling the dishwasher, "I can't give you truly accurate figures but the best guess is ten years. I could last longer."

"Why only ten years?" Buffy almost demanded the answer.

"I'm don't have an expiry date but machines don't last forever." Cassandra dumped tea out of two cups into the sink and spoke in her matter of fact and calm way. "When something vital wears out, I'll cease to function."

"Can you be repaired?" Willow asked urgently.

"By you?" Cassandra had two more cups in her hand and turned around to face Willow, "not by a long shot." Cassandra poured out the cups. "We have to survive _this_ war. Some of us won't. I have no comforting things to say."

"Ten years is all you have?" Willow gave Cassandra a gentle pat on her head. Willow had a crush on her: Cassandra was not beautiful or sexually attractive but she was cute, charming, witty and utterly unique. She had a fine grace not seen in brutal human from her fine face, silk like hair to the teal Apple logo she wore as a hair pin.

* * *

Casandra lay back on the couch. She had wanted to listen to Shostakovitch on her CD player but Willow sat on the couch and wouldn't leave.

"This appears to upset you." Cassandra folded her hand on her chest and half sat propped up with overstuffed cushions. "Don't think about it as a ten year lifespan: _I don't live_. I have a ten year expected service life. I may exceed that. Hardware upgrades and new technology may allow me to operate indefinitely."

Cassandra had trouble understanding Willow. Cassandra didn't understand Wicca or witches or spells or plants. Willow had acted oddly since Cassandra had explained her service lifespan and this had kept Cassandra from listening to music.

Willow liked Cassandra which made no senseto Willow and Cassandra didn't introspect enough to care. The little android defined the perfect anti – Wiccan. She killed plants but even more inexplicably had trouble understanding how a plant could die or why it mattered. She had no interest in Wicca. Willow had tried to explain Wicca and witchcraft and Cassandra lacked any hint of interest and looked confused. Willow had found great joy in her love of Kennedy. Willow had lived a life of doubts about her self image and lacked confidence even at the apex of her powers. Cassandra didn't care about opinion or pleasing people: she was simple, self contained and satisfied with the sad lot fate had given her. Willow found it so amazing that a man made machine could have an inherently good nature.

"Why didn't you join with _The First?_ " Willow asked hoping Cassandra might have an answer.

Cassandra said nothing for a moment. " _The First_ has no useful purpose. She can destroy but has no ability to create. She has all that power but something as simple as writing a bad piece of poetry will elude her." Cassandra began with her typical rhetorical calm. "She had nothing to offer me. She can emulate dead people; a very unusual but hardly useful ability. Hardly a useful power unless you lost that picture of your great grandmother and want to take another one. I have programming that compels me to work with people and I can't break my programming. So I said no."

In the blunt truth, Cassandra had no incentive to respond to given her short life span.

"How would you survive in a world full of demons?" Willow asked with a hint of concern. "You can't self terminate."

"Some demon likely would do it for me." Cassandra answered back. "The First doesn't have a pension plan which leads me naturally to ask how she handles demon retirement."

Cassandra had a special place in her processors for music – to quote Giles loosely. Buffy wondered if one of her creators bequeathed it to her so she could find some pleasure in her little life.

She had bought a fine Bose stereo system with a fine Bose headset the day after she had returned from the encounter with _The First_. She had her new PC laptop hooked into it and now played music Spike hated with much greater fidelity.

Willow came into the living room during the late afternoon after Cassandra had bought her new toys and watched Cassandra at work. At first she thought Cassandra was listening to music and working _on_ the computer. A laser printer hummed and then grew silent as it went into sleep mode.

What she saw and heard struck her dumb.

Cassandra had the sheet music for _Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in C Minor_ on the table next to the printer. This wasn't what struck Willow dumb. Willow watched Cassandra arrange the music on the computer screen into a full and broad score for a true orchestra using a complex piece of scoring software.

"I have often wondered how Bach and Handel might translate to the huge forces of the modern orchestra." Cassandra told willow as he adjusted her score. "I don't do music well, I play no instrument but then again, I love music and so this is worth the effort."

"Can I hear it?" Willow asked Cassandra.

Cassandra stood up and like some great gray haired lanky composer, stood still with a pencil in her hands.

Willow had expected a sad attempt by a computer to manipulate Bach into a pop music or disco abomination.

The digital orchestra had tuned itself and Cassandra began slowly.

The score began with a soft bassoon and bass chord out of which the melancholy oboe played the theme. Cassandra, the one who could never feel the deep sadness of her condition, wept in the long unfolding Fantasia of Bach. Originally intended for organ as incidental music for a church service; Cassandra had turned this piece into her own. The Fantasia reminded Willow of her experience as a young girl watching a parade as marching bands and floats went by or as she spun freely in her back yard merely getting dizzy and enjoying the fun.

Cassandra had faced the possibility of ceasing to exist and overcome it.

i Cassandra runs on an MSR which is a small machine but can release lot of energy. Unlike a regular reactor, they can run without releasing large amounts of radiation since the salt shields biological life forms.


End file.
